Cold run!

Devlyn and I took the A team out on a 24 mile run today with the atv. We plan on taking the sleds out tomorrow, if all goes well. But, we had a time crunch, so the atv it was. When we left the house, it was 0F. We live up on a hill, and our temps are almost always 10-20 degrees warmer than low lying areas in the winter time. However, we bundled up and off we went. The dogs ran really well for me. I'm a bit more cautious than Manny, so I kept the team slow on the way out, running about 10-12mph. Dusk and Just were in lead, Feather & Zen in swing, then China & Chevy, Booger & Sunshine, Jericho & Tricky, Hilti & Ahab, and finally Rocket & Inu in wheel. These are some very strong dogs! They pull the atv even with both brakes on. Yikes! Still, I was able to keep them under control, especially with the fresh snow on the trails. We met a beautiful team of siberians on a sled...I think there were 8-10 dogs. I pulled the atv off the side of the trail and our dogs lined out nicely, mostly on the right. The other team balked but their musher was able to call them on and they finally passed. My dogs did great, except stinking Sunshine...he started sniping at the other team until I scolded him...then he stopped. We took off from there and ran down the switchbacks to Anaconda Creek trail. Running through the clear cut was really COLD! The wind was blowing just a bit, but the temps must have been close to -20F. Devlyn & I whipped out the hand warmers and a few times, I had Devlyn get off the atv and walk up and down the dogs, petting them so that he'd warm up his feet and get the blood pumping. It's mighty cold sitting on an atv...brr! My feet got cold towards the end of the run, but I didn't get off the atv except for one time. Will test them with sleds next. It's really important to have quality gear and even more important to try the gear before the races.

Devlyn drove the dog team for a little while. It was pretty cool to see him running the atv with 14 dogs out front. The dogs listened to him as well. Nice! As we hooked back onto the wood cutting road trail, a friend was out with a 10 dog team on a sled. He was ahead of us, but we were going a bit faster, so I called trail and the dogs started a running pass. Very neat! They passed beautifully and I said Hi to Tom on my way by. Then, we started up the switchbacks, which are all climbing. Dusk decided to slow down, which was not cool since we'd just past Tom's swifters...but, I passed an alternate trail that Tom took, so I didn't have to worry about him getting hung up behind us. I stopped to switch Dusk back into swing and put my little Feather girl up front with Just. That did the trick! We ran up those hills at about 10mph. Now that may not sound like much to some...but it is GREAT to have dogs charge up hills like this. That saves a lot of time on races. I also don't let my dogs go flying down hills, as that's when they get injured from pounding on joints going too fast. We did the run in 2 hours, the dogs came in jazzed. Hilti almost pulled me off my feet when I led him back to his house...he wasn't even tired! Sunshine yanked on Manny too. So, hopefully we'll get the sleds out tomorrow and go for a longer run. Cheers!

-Were you a rogue today?